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Campaigners dismiss Christmas electricity blackout report as 'laughable'
Report warning of energy shortage widely discredited after just one MP backs it and it includes misleading claims
A report that warned of Christmas blackouts next year and purported to come from a group of MPs has been discredited after it emerged it was only backed by a single MP and included misleading claims.
The British Infrastructure Group (BIG), chaired by Conservative MP Grant Shapps, published a report on Monday that said coal power station closures and a drive for renewable energy had left the UK facing “intermittent blackouts for the foreseeable future”.
Continue reading...Mystery of hundreds of thousands of dead fish on Cornish beach solved
While some blamed bad weather or predation for beaching at Marazion at St Michael’s Mount, the fish were in fact dumped by a trawler for safety reasons
The mystery of why hundreds of thousands of fish were found washed up on a Cornish beach over the weekend has been solved: they were dumped by a trawler that caught too many sardines in shallow water.
After a photographer happened on the huge shoal of dead fish on Marazion at St Michael’s Mount beach, various explanations were offered for her eerie discovery – just two weeks after a similar sighting on another Cornish beach. Bad weather out at sea and attempts by the fish to escape large predators were both suggested as explanations.
Continue reading...Iron 'jet stream' detected in Earth's outer core
Prehistoric porridge? First pots for plant cooking found
Southern Water fined record £2m for sewage leak on Kent beaches
Thanet council forced to close beaches for nine days due to ‘catastrophic’ leakage and public health concerns
Southern Water has been fined a record £2m for flooding beaches in Kent with raw sewage, leaving them closed to the public for nine days.
The Environment Agency called the event “catastrophic”, while the judge at Maidstone crown court said on Monday that Southern Water’s repeat offending was “wholly unacceptable”. The company apologised unreservedly, as it did when fined £200,000 in 2013 for similar offences.
Continue reading...Alaska indigenous people see culture slipping away as sea ice vanishes
In a year almost certain to be history’s hottest, drastic environmental changes are taking a toll on food supply and even language in Arctic communities
The extreme warmth of 2016 has changed so much for the people of the Arctic that even their language is becoming unmoored from the conditions in which they now live.
The Yupik, an indigenous people of western Alaska, have dozens of words for the vagaries of sea ice, which is not surprising given the crucial role it plays in subsistence hunting and transportation. But researchers have noted that some of these words, such as “tagneghneq” (thick, dark, weathered ice), are becoming obsolete.
Continue reading...Arctic ice melt 'already affecting weather patterns where you live right now'
Soaring Arctic temperatures ‘strongly linked’ to recent extreme weather events, say scientists at cutting edge of climate change research
The dramatic melting of Arctic ice is already driving extreme weather that affects hundreds of millions of people across North America, Europe and Asia, leading climate scientists have told the Guardian.
Severe “snowmageddon” winters are now strongly linked to soaring polar temperatures, say researchers, with deadly summer heatwaves and torrential floods also probably linked. The scientists now fear the Arctic meltdown has kickstarted abrupt changes in the planet’s swirling atmosphere, bringing extreme weather in heavily populated areas to the boil.
Continue reading...Power station shares jump as EC approves wood-burning subsidies
A third of Drax’s coal power station will switch to biomass after European commission approves government subsidies
The share price of Britain’s biggest power station operator has jumped to a five-month high after the European commission approved subsidies for its conversion to burn wood pellets instead of coal.
Drax was awarded a renewable energy subsidy contract by the government in 2014 to switch the third unit of its coal power station in North Yorkshire over to biomass. That prompted a state-aid investigation by the commission, which was concerned the estimates of the plant’s performance were too generous and Drax would be overcompensated.
Continue reading...Ziggy Stardust snake and Klingon newt among 163 new species discovered in the Mekong – in pictures
Other finds in the biodiverse greater Mekong region include a rare banana species from Thailand and a tiny frog from Cambodia and Vietnam
Continue reading...'There's an elephant in the flowerbed again!'
What’s it like to live among elephants, to know that at any moment you might find yourself face to face with something so awe-inspiring – and so dangerous?
My family and I have lived on the edge of the Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary in the Nilgiri mountains, south India, for over three decades now. The children grew up here. Yet the thrill of knowing there’s an elephant in the garden is a feeling we all still savour. We cherish our elephant memories and can’t ever seem to become blasé about them.
Our elephant adventures began in 1984 when, with our one-year-old daughter, my husband and I crossed the jungle in a dilapidated jeep, sticking behind a lorry for comfort and company. The herds of elephants standing like sentinels on either side of the Bandipur-Mudumalai forest highway had us frantically praying for our safety. Mostly, one elephant, the matriarch, would trumpet loudly, warning us off, especially if there were young calves with the herd. Then she would angrily paw the ground as a prelude to charging. We would race away before she could carry out her threat.
Continue reading...A light wind creeping over the meadow face: Country diary 100 years ago
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 23 December 1916
Surrey, December 21
Rabbits could be seen playing in the meadow at the bottom of the down right up to the time when darkness came. There was no evening. The afternoon sky was just tinged with a strip of dull red in the west, and this patch of colour moved a little towards the north; then it died out. Nothing was visible except a planet and a few stars shining faintly, and seemingly very far away. Clouds in the higher sky came and completely blotted them; you lost all sense of direction; a mist began to spread upward; it was only by the tread of grass underfoot you had knowledge of being on the earth at all. The light, cold air died away; there seemed to be nothing but a chill, dead vacancy for almost an hour. Then a rustle, very slight, came moving along low down, as of something creeping over the meadow face. Bending, it was possible to discover that this was but the first movement of a light wind, just playing along the grass and hardly to be felt a few feet above the ground. But before the top of the down could be reached it could be heard sweeping among the elms a few yards on the other side; it had driven off the mist, and the great limbs could just be perceived swaying now this way and now the other. In the bottom, by the farmstead, strangely, a barnyard cock crowed hoarsely and twice, with a long pause in between. After another interval a bantam sounded a long shrill note. The wind dropped. But this morning it was wild again, scurrying heavy rain through the bare hazels. We knew then why the rabbits had been so frolicsome.
Experts stunned at theft of technology that saves Tasmanian devils from cars
$145 wildlife warning devices are designed to scare devils off road and have limited resale value
Thieves in Tasmania are stealing electronic fence posts designed to save the lives of endangered Tasmanian devils.
The thefts have bewildered the manufacturers, who say the $145 wildlife warning devices serve no purpose other than deterring wildlife and have limited resale value.
Continue reading...Rare ghost shark caught on film for the first time – video
Video footage of the rare Hydrolagus trolli, also known as a chimaera or ghost shark, has been taken for the first time off the coast of California
Continue reading...Mysterious ghost shark caught on film for the first time
Also known as chimaeras, the creatures have tooth plates instead of teeth and a retractable penis on their heads
American scientists surveying the depths of the ocean off the coast of California and Hawaii have unwittingly filmed the mysterious ghost shark for the first time.
The team from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Center had sent a remote operated vehicle down to depths of 2,000 metres (6,700ft) when the creature appeared on their screens.
Continue reading...The madness behind a Chief Scientist report on energy
Know your NEM: Energy regulators need to look forward, not back
Some analysts kid themselves about future of solar + storage
East Antarctica is melting from above and below
N.T. appoints wind, solar experts to 50% renewables panel
Coal closures: Will utility margins rise where the sun don’t shine?
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